The Parable of the Mustard Seed
Faith and Questions
When I was young, my mom used to point to the small things around us and use them to teach us about God. About how the birds never stop singing His praise, how He painted the skies, and sculpted the mountains.
Jesus did that, too. He was famous for taking common, everyday, ordinary things and pointing to what they can teach us about faith and the Kingdom of God. It would not be uncommon, if you were walking with Jesus, or just within earshot of him, to hear him say something like…
See this? This is kind of like. And as he did, Jesus helped people grow in the one thing everyone needs: Faith.
Some of us, maybe all of us, struggle on some level with faith.
Elisabeth Elliot, a missionary in Ecuador and a mother, once said this…
“Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them.”
— Elisabeth Elliot
When it comes to faith, God, and the kingdom of God, we tend to have some big questions. We tend to struggle. And we sometimes wonder, what if I don’t have much faith? Or big enough faith? What happens then?
Bigger is Better
Somewhere along the way, I think we’ve all bought into bigness.
Maybe it’s because we live in Texas! Maybe it’s because we live in America. Maybe it’s because we’re human. I don’t know.
I think it may have something to do with 1993.
In 1993, McDonalds did something that had never been done before. They introduced us to the McDonalds Super Size option for our value meal offering larger portions of fries and drinks when we placed our order! It was a marketing move that paid off big time!
Some of you remember this, but you would go to the counter, order your BigMac Meal, or whatever you wanted, and then the person at the register would ask you this question that was so tempting… I mean, who could refuse it?
They would ask, “Do you want to Super Size that?”
Who’s going to say, “No!?”
For just a few pennies more, you get a huge drink and a lot more of those irresistible fries! (Sorry, I know I’m making some of you hungry!)
We live in a world that says, “Bigger is better!”
And we apply that to everything. From the food we order, to the cars we buy, to the houses we live in, to the jobs we want, to the TV screens we have in our living rooms… Bigger is better! Or at least, that’s what we think.
But is it?
That’s the question I want to invite you to wrestle with today. Is bigger really better? And what happens when we take that idea and try to apply it somehow, someway, to our faith?
What happens when, if we’re being honest, we don’t have big faith? We don’t have a super-sized faith? We know people whom we look up to as being spiritual giants. We think they have great faith.
But truth be told, we’ve got more questions than answers. We’re not sure what we think about when we think about God. Our faith, if it’s even there at all, is so small.
Yes, we believe in God. Yes, we believe in Jesus. But we’re not sure if we believe enough or if we have enough faith to make a difference.
Good News about Small Faith
If that’s you, and that’s been me on more than one occasion, I’ve got Good News for you today.
Jesus once saw something as he was walking and talking to His disciples that prompted Him to talk about faith. He saw something that was so small, so seemingly insignificant, that it was likely invisible to everyone else. But He saw it. And He pointed it out. And He used it to teach something his friends and followers never forgot.
I know that’s true because this moment is recorded for us in 3 out of the 4 gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all mention it. They talk about it 5 different times in those 3 gospels.
I want to look at the last time Jesus brought this up. You can find this moment in Luke 17. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. This is the last time He’ll travel to Jerusalem with His disciples. At the end of this road trip awaits death and resurrection. His disciples don’t know that. But He does. So you can imagine that every word Jesus speaks in these days leading up to the cross is going to carry a lot of weight.
Before we get to the, “This is Kind of Like That,” moment… listen to what Jesus is saying to his disciples. I think his words to them back then are just as relevant to us in the here and now.
Withstanding Temptation
Luke, one of Jesus’ early followers, writes,
Luke 17.1-6
1 One day Jesus said to his disciples, “There will always be temptations to sin, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting! 2 It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin. 3 So watch yourselves!
Jesus, on the way to Jerusalem where death and resurrection are waiting, gives this warning to His disciples. There is always going to be temptation to sin.
Why?
Because we live in a broken and fallen world. Sin and the temptation to sin, it’s always going to be there. This doesn’t excuse our sin, but it does explain it. And we’re going to need some help if we are going to find a way to live faithfully in a fallen world. It’s not something we can do on our own. Temptation is always going to be there.
Jesus says, it’s one thing to be tempted, but it’s something else entirely to be the one doing the tempting! Jesus says… What sorrow awaits that person.
In other words, watch out! It would be better if you went and jumped in the river wearing a concrete vest! Can you even imagine Jesus saying this? Is He exaggerating? Of course! But don’t miss his point.
Someone, somewhere, is watching you. They are following your lead. Taking their cues from you. Are you pointing them to Jesus OR away from Jesus? Your words, actions, attitudes, the way you treat people… Jesus says, “Watch yourselves!” The way you live the life you live matters. It matters to God. And it matters to the people around you.
So Jesus begins this conversation by talking about withstanding temptation.
In a world full of temptation, your life is either pointing people toward Jesus or pulling them away—so live like someone is watching, because someone is always watching you.
Speaking Truth in Love
And then Jesus says…
“If another believer sins, rebuke that person; then if there is repentance, forgive. 4 Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive.”
In other words, withstanding temptation is a team sport! We can’t do this on our own. We need each other. So if you see someone sin, rebuke them!
That word rebuke, it’s not a word we use very often. Other translations say, “Warn,” or “Correct.” We think about rebuking someone, and it feels harsh, maybe even extreme. But Jesus wants us to care enough for each other and about each other that if and when we see someone do something that is not loving towards God or towards others, after all… that’s what sin is, then He wants us to care enough about each other to correct it.
To say something that is helpful. Not harmful!
Make sure you hear that. This isn’t a harmful correction.
There are a lot of people who have church hurt because they’ve been on the receiving end of someone else’s harsh attempt to call out sin. Whether they were right or wrong, the way they said what they said did more harm than good.
Jesus is calling us to be helpful. I know that because Jesus says the goal of this warning, this correction, is repentance and forgiveness.
The goal of helpful correction is repentance and forgiveness.
I don’t know about you, but if I want my kids to change, if there is something they are doing that is wrong and I want them to do better, to be better, that normally doesn’t happen when I yell and scream a lot. Change happens through helpful correction. Through loving conversation. That’s how we get to transformation.
That’s why Jesus says, even if you’ve been wronged, even if you’ve been hurt, seven times in one day… when the person asks for forgiveness forgive every time. Because this is the goal. To create this kind of community where people are able to withstand temptation, correct and help one another when we fail and fall, where repentance and forgiveness wins the day.
But these followers of Jesus know, if they’re going to be able to do this, they are going to need more of something.
We Need More… FAITH
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Show us how to increase our faith.”
If they are going to be able to withstand temptation, correct and help one another when they fail and fall, and be the kind of people where repentance and forgiveness wins the day, they’re going to need Jesus to Super Size their faith!
So, what is Jesus going to say about faith?
How can he teach his closest friends and followers about this important spiritual fruit? About growing in our believing in such a way that we can live the way we ought to live in the Kingdom of God?
6 The Lord answered, “If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘May you be uprooted and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you!
Jesus picks up a mustard seed and says, Look at this. See this?
This is kind of like that.
Faith is kind of like a mustard seed.
A mustard seed is very small—typically about 1 to 2 millimeters in diameter, roughly the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen. To put it in perspective, it takes about 700 to 1,000 mustard seeds to weigh just one gram.
If you have even this much faith, one thousandth of a gram of faith, guess what you can do!? You could tell that mulberry tree over there to go jump in the lake, and it would obey you.
If even faith this size enables you to command nature guess how much power you have access to in order to help you live the baptized life?
To help you withstand temptation, rebuke and correct each other (fellow believers), to be rebuked and corrected by fellow believers, to repent, and to forgive! YES! You can live this life that God has invited you into, even with a little faith.
You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to be a spiritual giant (if there even is such a thing). You just have to believe. Believe me and believe in me, Jesus says.
Great and Small, Death and New Life
Most of the time, whenever we talk about having faith the size of a mustard seed, we talk about the contrast between small and great. We’ll talk about how small the mustard seed is and yet, when it’s planted and it grows, it can grow as tall as 8-10 feet high. We talk about how God can do big things with small faith. And… He can!
But what’s also amazing to think about is how a mustard seed, when it’s planted, grows in secret. No one sees what’s happening underground. No one notices how the seed has to die before new life is resurrected. Remember, Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, where death and resurrection await.
Maybe Jesus is saying something here about death and resurrection to us. That if we, in a similar way, are willing to have mustard seed-sized faith, if we’re willing in that faith to meet Jesus in death, then He will raise something new in us.
And that raises an even more interesting question… What is Jesus hoping to raise within us, and grow within us? What inside of us is He perhaps wanting to grow in secret?
What if Jesus wants to resurrect within us the ability to withstand temptation, a willingness to correct and to be corrected, to repent and to forgive? What if this is the fruit that grows in secret, when no one is watching, from a mustard seed-sized faith?
What if that’s what Jesus wants for you?
The Rest of the Story
In 1956, Jim Elliot and four other missionaries were killed in the mission field while serving the Lord in Ecuador. They had come to reach a people group that had never heard the gospel. The Huaorani tribe. The very people they came to save killed them.
Jim and his wife Elisabeth had one child. A daughter named Valerie. She was only 10 months old when her father was killed. No one would have blamed Elisabeth for leaving Ecuador and never returning. No one would have thought twice. In fact, we might have helped raise money to bring her home, to provide for her and her child, to care for them however we could.
But Elisabeth did something most of us would have thought of as unthinkable. She returned to Ecuador, to the Huaorani tribe, with her daughter, to continue the work that she, her husband, and others had started. To share the message of Jesus with these people who had never heard the gospel. And because of that, many people in that tribe came to know Jesus Christ.
Elisabeth went on to write some 20 books. She wrote about faith, suffering, and what it means to follow Jesus. As far as I know, she never asked God to Super Size her faith, but her faith grew over time through her obedience in following Jesus.
She once challenged her audience in a speech at a women’s conference to, “Make yourself small.”
She wasn’t saying that for any other reason except to encourage those God had placed before her to be and become more like Jesus.
Here’s the paradox, here’s the surprise at the end of the parable, great faith is actually the size of a mustard seed and it’s found in people who make themselves small. Humble.
It’s interesting, we don’t value smallness. We wouldn’t put a lot of worth in a single mustard seed, or in someone with only mustard seed sized faith.
But Jesus… He seemed to delight in the small. And He seemed to say, in a world where our faith is often challenged, where our faith sometimes fades and fails, a little faith in Jesus can go a long way! And it can produce great fruit.
If we will choose to believe, even a little, God can do great things in us and through us. With a little faith in Jesus, we can withstand temptation, we can correct and be corrected, we can repent, and we can forgive.
God can produce great things in us through small faith.
So today, come to Jesus with whatever faith you have, and ask Him to produce great things in you and through you. After all, it’s not about the size of our faith, it’s about the size of our God!
Come to Him with whatever faith you have and ask Him to help you withstand temptation. To help others withstand temptation. To repent. And to forgive.
Make yourself small today. No one did that better than Jesus! The Son of God, the all-consuming, ever-present, everywhere all at once God, made Himself small. He wrapped himself in human flesh. He became so small that he could be contained in a manger. He could be held up on a cross. He did that for you and for me.
And whenever you make yourself small, and you ask Jesus to take your mustard seed sized faith, you can be sure God can do great things.
Bring Me Your Mustard Seed Sized Faith
If you find yourself at McDonald’s later today, just FYI… you can’t Super Size your meal anymore. They phased out that promotion in 2004. It’s gone. But maybe that’s a good thing. Not just for our waistline, but for our souls.
In a world that thinks bigger is better, Jesus says, “Bring me your mustard seed-sized faith.”
That’s something we can do. And I just wonder, what if we all did that today? What if we brought our mustard seed-sized faith to Jesus today, allowed him to plant it, grow it, and cause it to flourish and thrive?
I can only imagine years later to see all the 10-foot trees, all the ways God has grown us and grown his church as He leveraged our faith to help us withstand temptation, correct and be corrected, repent, and forgive. Wouldn’t it be amazing to be a church like that?!
Want more from this Series… Click here.
